Shadows by E. C. Blake

the house, while Mara, helpless, looked over his broad arm at the dark forest where Edrik, Chell, and Keltan must just be realizing she was missing.
    Light flared in the doorway as Filia lit a lamp. “Take her into Greff’s room, Jess,” the woman said. Mara could see her face now, unMasked, lined, a kind and friendly face filled with equal parts concern and bewilderment.
    Jess turned to the right, ducking through the low door into a lean-to of a room, obviously a later addition to the original farmhouse, since its walls were of plastered timber rather than stone. It had two big windows, both shuttered, a chest, a small table, and a long, narrow bed. Her breathing was coming easier now, which allowed her to feel more clearly the sharp pain between her shoulder blades. Jess started to place her on the bed, then stopped. “She’s bleeding, Filia!”
    I am?
Mara thought.
    Filia bent closer, and made a tsking sound. “Looks like you fell on something sharp, love,” she said to Mara. “But not to worry, it doesn’t look too serious from what I can see. Hold her a moment more, Jess.” She bustled out and returned with a ragged blue blanket, which she spread on the bed. “There now,” she said. “I don’t mind getting blood on that. Put her down.”
    Gently, Jess lay Mara down. She gasped as her back touched the blanket, and sat up again in a hurry. “Ow,” she said.
    â€œI’d best take a closer look,” Filia said. She waited a moment, then gave her husband an exasperated look. “That means taking off her jacket and blouse, you big lummox,” she said. “Which means you have to leave.”
    â€œOh!” Jess said. His face turned red. “Of course. Sorry, miss. I’ll . . . I’ll just go retrieve my stick.” He went out.
    Filia shook her head in a bemused sort of way. “Not the smartest wolf in the pack,” she said to Mara, “but a wonderful man, all the same. Now, let’s get a look at you . . .”
    With Filia’s help, Mara slipped out of her jacket and blouse and undertunic, then hugged her arms across her breasts while the farmwoman examined her back. “How . . . how bad is it?” Mara said, the first sentence she’d managed to speak since falling from the horse.
    â€œNaught but a nasty scratch,” Filia said. “From a sharp rock or a bit of root, most like. I’ll have it cleaned up and bandaged in a jiffy. You just sit tight for a moment.” She got up and went out, closing the door behind her.
    Mara, still hugging herself, looked around the little room. Besides the bed and chest and the little table on which the lantern rested, she saw a shelf attached to one wall. On it were half a dozen wooden carvings of birds. They weren’t extraordinarily wonderful carvings: Mara had seen far better in the Outside Market, never mind the high-end shops of the Inside Market near the Palace gate. But she thought, from looking at them, that they had probably been done by a child; and as the work of a child, they definitely held promise. She could have done better, but then, she’d had a lot of practice sculpting as apprentice to her father.
    Her father. He would be looking for her the very next night. How was she going to get away?
    She shivered, and wished Filia would hurry up. The room was warmer than the air outside, but not by much. It was certainly too cold to sit around half naked.
    Fortunately, Filia returned within five minutes, with a basin of steaming water and a folded-up piece of white cloth from which she tore several strips. The first she used as a rag to clean the wound Mara couldn’t see but could certainly feel; she gasped. Then Filia tore three more strips from the cloth and had Mara lift her arms so she could wind them around her chest and back. When she was done, Mara looked down and sighed. Bound in the bandages, she was even more